Rob Walker

Rob Walker|Essays

Crowdcrit vs. Apple Maps

An instant Tumblr responds to Apple's maps app, and demonstrates the art of the creative takedown.

Rob Walker|Essays

Card Tricks

The digital doesn't annihilate the analog, and business card creativity proves it.

Observed|Recommended Books

Uncreative Writing

Rob Walker recommends Kenneth Goldsmith's "Uncreative Writing".

Rob Walker|Essays

Making "Making" Mass

A visit to an outpost of TechShop, the aspriing "Kinko's for geeks," in North Carolina.

Rob Walker|Essays

Focusing On ‘Optics’

Optics: The indispensible buzzword for those who analyze pseudo-events.

Rob Walker|Essays

The City In Your Dreams

A blog collecting stories for mapping the "collective unconscious" of NYC.

Rob Walker|Essays

High Caliber Expression

Reading Richard Ford's response to a critic (by shooting her book) as an expressive act.

Observed|Recommended Books

Swimming Studies

Leanne Shapton is known for her work as a writer and illustrator, but it turns out that her new book, Swimming Studies, is animated by her abilities as an athlete.

Rob Walker|Essays

Secret Lives Of Things

Ian Bogost explains why it's important to try to understand what it's like to be a thing.

Rob Walker|Essays

De-weaponization by Design

Riffing on their weird resonance of a violent object: brass knuckles.

Rob Walker|Essays

Observational Instruments, Observed

Peeping at the Venue project's delightful gear, and Google's Seussian Trekker

Rob Walker|Essays

The Built Villain

A Dallas condo dispute considered as a monster movie, starring a built villain.